, 1887-09-23
RUSSIANS AMONG THE CLOUDS.
On the Plateau of the P~amir-Marco Po-
los Fables vorIh ed-To India.

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On the Plateau of tho PRmir-Marco Po-
los Fables vorihed-To India.
The Russians have fairly established
themselves on n of the plateaus of the
Pamir, that greatest protuberance of the
world, which the Chinese said a thousand
years ago was midway between heaven
and earth, and which the natives call
1.-THE Roof of the World" Twenty years
ago about all we knew of the Pamir was
contained in a single chapter of Marco
Polo's travels. The remarkable facts
presented in this chapter were cited for
many years as specimens Of the fables
spun by this much discredited writer. In
the history Of discovery no early writer
has been 80 brilliantly sustained by mod
ern researches as Marco Polo has been by
the Russian explorers who nave overrun
the Pamir in all directions, and have
found that his picture Is almost photo
graphic in its accuracy.
Polo said that the herdsmen ON the
Pamir made fences of the o horns
of wild mountain sheep to inclose their
cattle at night. The Russians nave found
these horns nearly five feet in length, and
a mar could not lift a pair of them Polo
asserted that on these lofty table lands he
could not make his fire burn brightly or
give out much heat, and the same phe-
nomenon, due to the rarefication of the
air, has been observed by all recent Pamir
travellers. He said these plains afforded
the best pasture in the world, and that a
lean beast would fatten there in ten days.
A recent writer says: 1.-THE grass of the
Pamir is so rich that a sorry horse is here
brought into good condition in less than
twenty days"
These plains are diversified by low
ridges, and here and there a lofty noun
tain with snow capped tops, rivaling the
great submits of the Himalayas. But
from the plain where the traveller sees
them they do not appear to be higher
h our OWL Mount Washington, for
they rest upon plateaus that are from
10000 to 5000 feet high, and whose
mean elevation above the sea is more than
twice that of the top of Mount Washing
ton. This is the reason hat the noun
tains of the Pamir and of its eastern ex-
tension, that walls in Thibet on the north,
are not particularly impressive in appear
ance, though they are among the loftiest
SUBMITS of the world.
1t is just below the loftiest of these
Pamir plateaus near Lake Sarakul that
the Russians are building environments
for their troops and feeding their horses
on the succulent grasses that Polo de-
scribed. Why they nave invaded these
f%orbidding heights, where no crops can
ripen and no vegetation except grass
fourishes, is a mystery that time will
doubtless make clear. We only know
that there they are within 100 miles of
h Indian frontier, and that almost at
their feet Is the Afghan state of Badakh-
shan, which is more nearly allied in SYM
pathy and interest to the Russian depend
ency of Bokhara than to England's
protege, the ameer.
The passages of the Alps by Hannibal
and Napoleon are famous in the history
of military exploits; but no commander
has ever led his troops to such enormous
heights as those which the soldiers of the
car now occupy. Tradition says that
the great Aryan invasion that peopled
Europe started from these Pamir heights,
following westward the classic Oxus and
~Jaxartes, at whose fountain heads the
Russians now water their horses. 1t
would thus appear that the lusty descend
ants of these Aryan forefathers, bent ON
reconquering the East from which they
sprung, have reached at last the great
distributing point from which their an
cient p~rogenitors passed with their herds
into the low lying west, or southwark
into the valleys of India.-New York
Sun.